Barry Bennett is described as a fair and successful businessman who loved the ocean.
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He was the first in Australia to start manufacturing and shaping surfboards and was instrumental in importing the resin and fibre sheets for the local market.
Bennett was a surfer himself and was known to swim in the ocean every day before heading into the office.
Always in board shorts and thongs, he'd be ever-present to blow foam and shape boards.
Phil Byrne from Byrne Surf store in Thirroul says his relationship with Bennett started in the mid-70s.
"Surf shops in Australia in the 70s only had imported boards, wax and boardshorts, there was nothing locally made because we didn't have the resources.
"Barry Bennett was the grandfather of the surfboard industry in Australia, he imported everything we needed to start making boards ourselves," Byrne said.
"He was liked by all and helped out young pro surfers with sponsorship and advancing credit so people could pay off their boards. He was one person I looked up to and admired.
"Barry leaves a massive legacy to the sport of surfing. His insight and knowledge led to Australia becoming one of the prominent surfboard makers in the world in the early 80s," Byrne said.
"My business success and many others in the Illawarra all filtered down from him. Australia is still considered a leading manufacturer in the industry."
Another Wollongong surf legend John Skipp has fond memories of Bennett who he described as a "back of the factory bloke rather than a front of the house guy".
Skipp opened his surfboard-making factory in 1970, on the Princes Highway in Wollongong. In a roundabout way, he too has Barry Bennett to thank for that.
Many years before that was even an idea, a teenage Skipp saved his money for a new Bennett made surfboard. His dad drove him to Sydney to pick it up.
It was a balsa wood board from Bennett and weighed 26 pounds.
Skipp said, at the time Bennett was making boards for surfers and hollow timber boards for the surf clubs.
"Barry was so confident about the sport taking off in Australia that he decided to buy a factory in Harbord and get serious," Skipp said.
"I decided it was a good business idea for the Illawarra, too."
And so another plank of Wollongong's surf industry, Skipp Surfboards, was borne.
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